Impostor Syndrome
It had been 3 days since Kaizen went missing, and JJ was worried sick. Kaizen was one of JJ’s closest friends, if not the closest. It just wasn’t like him to disappear like this.
JJ had tried everything. He called him on Discord, called his phone, messaged him via SMS, and asked around to find where he had gone. His mom had also gone missing, and he had no contact with her either. JJ was pacing his living room, full of anxiety. And then…
He remembered someone he didn’t ask. Knox. Surely Knox of all people would know where Kaizen was, and if he didn’t already know JJ was confident Knox could find him. Knox was one of the smartest people JJ knew, and JJ believed he could find the answer. JJ stopped pacing. It was already pretty late, and going somewhere unplanned is always pretty rude. It doesn’t matter. JJ thought. This is urgent.
…
With the speed of someone in dire hurry, JJ had made it to Knox’s house. Knox didn’t live that far away, only a couple blocks, and JJ had barely broken a sweat running here. Nervous, JJ knocked on the front door. No response. He knocked again. Still no response. JJ knocked again, and accidentally opened the door to find the house in a state of disarray. “What?” JJ said out loud.
Sometimes Knox’s house was messy, but never this messy. As JJ stepped into the mess, he wondered what happened. This didn’t look like it was done by an ordinary person. Bookcases were overturned, tables flipped, and garbage coated the floor. Walking into the dining room, he saw a door open he hadn’t really noticed before. Knox had a lab attached to the first floor of his house, but looking down the staircase behind the door revealed sterile metal and concrete. Taking the plunge, JJ walked down the staircase into the basement he didn’t know about.
Entering the apparent “second lab”, he saw heavy machinery and a lot of materials organized into neat rows on storage shelves. A computer station with an absurd amount of monitors was tucked into one corner, and a giant metal door in another corner. And sitting in another corner of the room…
Was Kaizen. Sitting there, chained to the wall, thin and seemingly still. “Oh no…” JJ said as he spotted his dear friend. He rushed over and knelt down beside Kaizen. JJ shook Kaizen, seeing if he was alive. Kaizen jolted awake, eyes wide open and wild.
“J… JJ?!” Kaizen said, relieved, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to get you out of here, apparently,” JJ replied. “How did you even get down here?”
“Knox was… acting strange. I was feeling tired after eating a cookie, and next thing I knew I was down here.” Kaizen said, somewhat struggling to speak. “He ran all sorts of tests on me or something. He drew my blood, and did a whole lot of other things, not saying a word the whole time.”
“That is definitely not like him,” JJ replied.
“Honestly… You should leave. I don’t know what he was doing to me, but I don’t know what he wants.” Kaizen said in a serious tone. “He could do something worse to you.”
Just then, JJ heard footsteps. Cold, uncaring footsteps on the stairs. The blatant sounds of shoes hitting the metal stairs. JJ looked behind him in a flurry, panicked by what he might see.
It was Knox. Looking the same as ever, one of his paws held a syringe. His expression conveyed no surprise. He had obviously seen the open front door.
“What a nice surprise seeing you here, JJ.” Knox said in a very not-Knox-like tone, hints of arrogance weaved into his every word. “For once I don’t have to go get a test subject.”
“S–Stay away from me!” JJ said, his words filled with fear.
A slam echoed across the room from an unnoticed closet.
“Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.” Knox said sinisterly.
Another slam from that closet.
“N–No!” JJ screams in fear. JJ tried to run, but Knox tackled him to the ground, quickly pinning him there. With his hands held behind his back, and legs held down by Knox’s body, there was nothing he could do. Knox lifted the syringe high, high into the air and injected its contents into JJ’s arm.
Almost Instantly, waves of pain washed over JJ’s body. His entire body, being cried out in immense, unforgiving pain. Knox got up off of JJ, but he barely even noticed. JJ was almost entirely paralyzed from the intense pain he was feeling. Soon enough, JJ collapsed into a heap, twitching. Agony filled every vein in his body. And then, he passed out.
With a little bit of force and clever thinking, Knox managed to break down the door. He had been stuck in there for the past week, being slid food underneath the door. Whatever it was that took his form, it clearly didn’t want anyone else knowing he was here. Knox didn’t know why it wouldn’t just kill him, since that was seemingly the typical for monsters like that.
Running out into his work room, Knox saw not-himself standing over JJ’s body, with Kaizen chained to the far wall. This scene was… very strange.
“Hello,” Knox said coldly, his ears going back.
“Seems like you finally broke out,” Not-Knox said as he turned his head to look at the real Knox. “About time.”
“What did you do to him?” Knox asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Not much, not much,” Not-Knox answered, shrugging sneeringly.
Knox couldn’t stand the presence of this faker any longer. He reached for the emergency M11 stashed in his coat pocket, a pocket which he managed to keep secret from the impostor. Not-Knox’s demeanor changed when he saw the weapon, going from arrogant to serious.
“I suggest you get out of here,” Knox said, pointing the gun at the creature standing before him.
“Like that will do anything-” Not-Knox was interrupted by a loud BANG that reverberated around the small room. Knox had pulled the trigger, and the barrel was smoking from the recently ejected round. The bullet had gone straight through, leaving a dark hole in the impostor’s chest. The strange thing about that was that it didn’t bleed. Not only that, but even now Knox could see the wound healing itself, slowly but surely.
“Get. Out.” Knox said calmly, his eyes narrowed to slits as he tried to hide the fear. His hands shook ever so slightly, betraying his stoic nature.
With a sly smile, whatever it was that looked like him dissolved into dust. Knox unfroze and started breathing again, not realizing he was holding it in. He dropped the gun and rushed over to JJ’s unconscious form. Kaizen, who hadn’t said anything since Knox broke out of the closet, finally spoke up.
“What did that thing do to him?!” Kaizen said, panic echoing through his voice.
“I don’t know,” Knox said, panic ever so slightly tracing his as well. Knox started patting JJ down, trying to feel for something specific. He unfortunately found what he was looking for. Knox stood up and took a step back. He knew what was going to happen to one of his closest friends.
“What’s… what’s happening?” Kaizen said more panicked than before. Knox didn’t answer, his eyes expressing nothing but endless horror. Soon, what was happening became all too clear.
JJ’s legs began to shift and change, the sound of cracking bone reverberating through the small concrete room. Dark purple hair… no, fur began sprouting from JJ’s legs, covering every inch of his skin. Kaizen backed up into the wall sharply, pure horror washing over his face. Knox just sat frozen. He had seen the lab tests, he knew what would happen next. That didn’t stop him from being horrified by what he had created.
Soon his chest changed, with the purple fur spreading like wildfire. On points of his arm, it even formed blueish-purple highlights. Knox could even spot a fluffy tail growing underneath JJ. Knox was still frozen, unable to force himself to move.
Knox couldn’t help but feel this was his fault. He was the one responsible for the RGR method, he was the one who figured out how to break the seal. He had done things that not even human scientists could dream of. Here it was, being used as a weapon.
He sat in silence for a moment after it was done. JJ’s form was almost completely different, being that of a cat. Where there used to be human palms, there were now paws. His face had changed the most, now having a snout and big ears.
Knox heard Kaizen crying, but it didn’t quite register. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the whiplash JJ would go through when he woke up. In a daze, he undid Kaizen’s chains without really thinking. It just felt so… unreal.
“What… what should we do now?” Knox jolted back to his senses. Kaizen had grabbed Knox’s shoulder, almost grounding himself to make sure this was all real.
“We should take him upstairs,” Knox responded, his face now devoid of all emotion. “He won’t be awake for a while.”
…
JJ slowly opened his eyes. The last thing he could remember before the world went dark was some intense pain, and then simply… nothing. No dreams, no visions, just never-ending darkness.
It took him a moment to slump up to a sitting position. His vision was still blurry from exhaustion, but he could somewhat make out the room around him. It was Knox’s living room. JJ couldn’t quite remember if this was the last place he was.
These small observations did not help the headache ravaging the inside of his skull. Tentatively, JJ reached up a hand and massaged his forehead. When he lowered his hand in front of his face, he froze. Instead of his normal human hand, before him was a furred arm, covered in dark purple fur. He slowly tried to flex his fingers, and the arm did the same. It was his arm.
It was then that he looked down, and screamed.
…
Sometime later, JJ had calmed down. He was holding a mug of hot chocolate, and Kaizen sat beside him. JJ was still trying the task of processing all of this. His body felt so… so wrong. At the same time, some part of him, somewhere deep in his genetic code told him that he was always this way.
He set his mug down on the coffee table, and looked at his new paws again. His ears tilted backward by instinct, instinct which had not previously been there. How was he to explain this to anyone? Who would even really believe him when he told them? He balled his paws into fists before him, his eyes narrowing.
“I… I’m not even entirely sure what to say to you guys,” JJ said finally. “This is just… it doesn’t feel real.”
“I expected that kind of reaction,” Knox said, disguising the guilt that traced every thought. “I know I wouldn’t like something like that happening to me unwillingly, heh.” HE let a sad smile creep across his face.
“Ironic, isn’t it? One of my friend’s lives changed by my worst creation. I guess I deserve it…”
The sun was starting to rise outside, the beginning of morning crossing the windowsill. JJ stared out the window, resolve building inside him.
“I’ll make the best of this,” he said.
He stood up experimentally, almost falling over from how unused he was to these new legs.
“Mind if I come with you?” Kaizen stood up and asked.
“I’ve been missing your company for the past 3 days, of course I want you to come with me.” JJ responded, smiling.
And with that, JJ and Kaizen walked out the front door, heading a course for home.